Time for restraint over gun laws

Telegraph View: Drafting new gun ownership legislation in the wake of
Cumbria could do more harm than good.

When confronted by the kind of madness that drove Derrick Bird to murder 12 people, society tends to experience an awful sense of impotence. This is not a comfortable state of mind, so the focus inevitably shifts to exploring ways of ensuring such horrors can never be repeated. In the context of the Cumbria shootings, that means revisiting our gun laws. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said in the Commons yesterday that it was "right and proper" for such a debate to take place. She is entirely correct. Parliament must have the opportunity, once the full facts of the case are known, to debate all the implications of Wednesday's terrible events.

What it must be wary of, however, is rushing into a knee-jerk response by pressing for new legislative restrictions on gun ownership – a point made forcefully by David Cameron yesterday. Laws drafted in haste as a consequence of public anxiety frequently do more harm than good: witness the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. Gun controls are already among the most stringent in the world. The Hungerford massacre in 1987 saw the banning of semi-automatic and pump-action rifles, short shotguns and self-loading rifles. The Dunblane shootings in 1996 led to the outlawing of handguns of .22 calibre or more. These were sensible measures. At the same time, there is a rigorous licensing regime for both shotguns and firearms. The real threat when it comes to criminality and firearms is from illegally held weapons.

The sad truth is that one cannot legislate for the actions of madmen, and it is fatuous to try. Nearly three quarters of a million people in this country possess shotgun or firearm licences. We can tighten the restrictions all we want, but in the end the problem is not the weapon, but the wielder.